Monday, February 14, 2011

Edible Secrets by Michael Hoerger, Mia Partlow & Nate Powell

(www.microcosmpublishing.com) A shopping lift of Lefty anti-CIA/FBI greatest hits (MKUltra, Black Panther assassinations, Soviet espionage, global Corporate conspiracies) are presented in a bakery-fresh manner: as beautifully illustrated, food-themed snacks. By very loosely using food as bait to draw you into these sordid tales of American governmental evil (as revealed in declassified documents) we not only get to tangentially explore some famed atrocities (documents revealing the Feds were interested in subliminal popcorn advertising at the movies is an excuse to explore more devious mind control/torture histories) but we also get new perspectives on chilling chestnuts. Every Chicago southsider knows the terrible tale of Fred Hampton's murder, but to see a document, cc'd to the Prez, about teen Hampton allegedly robbing an ice cream truck shows how deep the Feds' surveillance of black revolutionary youth got. Hampton was in the NAACP's youth council and whether he was framed or just monitored, the POTUS getting a memo about a $50 Good Humor bum rush is pretty fucked up. Other highlights include the U.S. using a Jello box as misleading evidence to convict the Rosenberg's of spying, Castro's milkshake being targeted for poisoning by a U.S. agent, and Coca-Cola trying to play both sides of the Israel/Arab conflict. The book is breezily written while still being disturbing, and Powell's comix-like illos bring the gory truth home while maintaining some gallows whimsy. Nauseatingly delicious!